Plus One by Brighton Walsh Page B

hightailed it out of the restaurant and straight to her car, the deep chuckle rumbling in her ear as she went. A chuckle that belonged to her best friend’s brother, Ian Donnelly—who, thanks to his rescue from her abysmal date, was currently her favorite person in the entire world.
    “Oh, yeah, yuk it up,” she said once she was safely in her car. “He was talking about cat pee, Ian! At dinner!”
    That just caused him to laugh harder, the sound a welcome comfort in an otherwise god-awful night. She switched him over to her Bluetooth and headed out of the parking lot, anxious to get as far away from this nightmare of a date as possible.
    “I don’t know why you do this to yourself, Livvy.”
    Even the use of his childhood nickname for her couldn’t calm her down. “Why? Why ?” she asked, her voice rising an octave. “Maybe because I’ve been asked to be the bridesmaid in no less than four weddings in the next six months, not to mention the five save-the-date cards I’ve gotten in the mail.” She blew out an irritated breath. “That’s at least nine events it would be nice to have a date to. But you know what? I’m done. No more, Ian! Men are all lousy asshats who don’t know good conversation from their own sweaty ball sacs.”
    He sputtered a choked laugh, and let out a defensive, “Hey!”
    “Well, it’s the truth.”
    As she navigated the streets to her condo, she mentally catalogued some of the more interesting tidbits from the plethora of bad dates she’d subjected herself to over the past eighteen months.
    There was Ernie, a plumber who’d completely lived up to the stereotype, his ass-crack hanging out of his pants whenever he’d bent over even the slightest bit. He’d taken her to a neighborhood pizza place—which, hey, whatever, she wasn’t high-maintenance and loved good pizza as much as the next girl—but then he’d proceeded to talk about some of the things he’d unclogged from toilets...while their pizza had been sitting in front of them.
    Then there was Charles, the high-powered CEO who had looked great on paper, but who had turned out to be a chauvinist jackass who’d done nothing but belittle her and her “silly business” all through their date. Then he’d had the nerve to be shocked when she’d turned him down for a second date, telling her—and with a straight face, no less—that she should be so lucky to land someone like him.
    Uh-huh, sure.
    And then there was her personal favorite, Cliff—thirty-five, unemployed and still living at home in his mother’s basement. He’d shown up on her doorstep with a bag of McDonald’s and three pornos, which he’d thought they could watch together—you know, to get in the mood for the rest of the night.
    Yeah.
    So, forgive her for giving up on those lovely specimens.
    “Come on, Liv,” Ian’s voice urged gently in her ear. “We’re not all that bad.”
    She scoffed and rolled her eyes, though she knew he couldn’t see. “Well, no, you’re not that bad, but the rest of your penis-toting brothers are.”
    He chuckled, the sound finally tugging a smile from her, and she was reminded how much she missed him. Now that he lived two hours away, she didn’t get to see him as often as she used to when he’d been living right here in Minneapolis. She, Ian and Emma had all been practically joined at the hip right up until he’d graduated from college and accepted a great job offer in Rochester. Even with seven years to get used to it, their separation was still hard to deal with sometimes.
    Since he’d moved, they’d always managed to get together at least every few months, but she realized it had been almost a year since they’d last seen each other. While they had texts and phone calls, it just wasn’t the same. As much as she wanted to see him, life happened. If it wasn’t her bakery or his job, it was family or vacations or something else that caused them to miss paths. Now, though, as she listened to his carefree